Fade to Black
by Parallel Monsoon
Summary: Ever notice that fics with human Castiel tend to deal with his first time eating, having sex, or driving a car, but skip right over his first time in the bathroom? Here's one that doesn't. Not crack- if anything, this fic takes itself way too seriously.


They came for him on a Thursday.

He did not fight his brothers when they gripped him tight. With his aid the Winchesters had saved the world, but Castiel had known that for him the end had yet to come. He was less than what he had once been, but he was still an angel. In Heaven there was no disobedience without punishment.

Creativity did not come easily to his kind. They were straightforward in their retribution, the metaphors childish and plain. He had walked beside mortals and so they clipped his wings, the sheared pinions littering the clouds in a drift of smoke. He had given warnings that were not his to give and so they took his voice in a bloody flash of the blade.

The one thing they could not take from him was his Grace. Angels could fall by their own hand or by their Father's will alone, and Castiel still had faith that God would not have wanted humanity destroyed. Instead they bound him to his vessel, trapping him with mortar of flesh and bone.

When it was over Michael asked him of regret. Castiel shook his head. There was grief and fear within him, but no remorse for the path he had taken. What the others had taken for free will was nothing more than submission to a higher power. Given the choice between Dean's life and his kin's acceptance, Castiel had let his Grace decide.

There was no anger in Michael's eyes at the answer. His smile was kind, the kiss he placed on Castiel's forehead one of benediction.

"There is no disobedience without punishment," he said, "Nor is there faith without reward."

And he sent Castiel home.

* * *

Dean made no secret of his scrutiny as he watched Castiel shift in his chair. The angel had been returned to them in pieces, a shattered thing in blood-streaked clothes. He'd been unable to tell them what had been done to him and given pen and paper had written lines of gibberish, as if his brethren had taken not just his voice but language as a whole. The worst moment had come when Castiel looked at his own meaningless scribbles and **laughed**, not soundlessly but with a raw and ugly hiss.

He wasn't laughing now. Castiel's fingers plucked at the knees of the pajamas that engulfed him, borrowed from Sam when Dean discovered all his own clothes needed washing. Sweat glittered on his forehead and the pale cheeks were flushed, a rosy tint that gave only the illusion of good health.

"Cas? You okay?"

Dean hated himself for the question. Castiel was a far cry from 'okay', would probably never be okay again. He'd been back with them for only a day and had spent the bulk of that time sitting in a chair at the tiny table, staring down at the formica as if he could see his Father's face in the fake wood grain.

Castiel looked over at him and his smile did little to disguise the strain on his face. "What's wrong?" Dean asked, then shook his head at the same time Castiel shook his own. They'd stopped the Apocalypse in its tracks, but not a single thing was right in their world. "Are you in pain?" he tried.

A nod. "Shit," Dean said, but it was more a sigh than a curse. "Your throat? Your back?"

Castiel hesitated before giving a negative response. Whatever the archangels had done had made it so that wounds inflicted on Castiel's true form manifested on his vessel. It had taken Sam to figure that out, the lash marks and scabbed cut across Jimmy Novack's neck offering unsubtle clues. They were far from healed, but apparently whatever was distressing Castiel was something new.

Dean took in the angel's hunched posture, the way he sat with his arms curled across his stomach. Sam had reasoned tying Castiel to the vessel meant he would need to eat, but their first attempt at feeding him had ended in disaster. Dean very much doubted there was anything left to come up. Thus far the only thing Castiel had managed to hold down had been Sam's peppermint tea, weakly brewed and sweetened with sugar.

Dean slapped his own forehead hard enough to spark a sting through his skull. "Cas, is it pain or is it pressure?"  
Two nods. Both, then. Dean wished for his brother, but Sam had left shortly after dawn, heading off to Bobby's to research what one does with a mute, shell-shocked angel. Neither of them had felt comfortable inflicting hours of riding in the car on Castiel, not with his back ripped to pieces as it was. Separating had meant "borrowing" another car, but Dean figured the owner owed it to them for saving the world and all, even if they were the only ones who knew how close things had actually come.

"How much of that tea did you drink, anyway? No, never mind, let's get you up…"  
Castiel shot Dean a confused look as he was levered up from the chair but allowed himself to be pushed and prodded across the motel room. He'd been too docile since his return, as docile as he'd been when the dicks descended on him in the first place. Dean missed the Castiel who wasn't afraid to get up in his face and lay things on the line.

Dean supported most of the angel's weight until they made it to the bathroom. Once inside he transferred Castiel's hold to the sink, trying hard to ignore the way Castiel's lips shaped themselves into a startled 'o' when he caught sight of his own reflection. The mark across his neck was deep and puffy with inflammation. In the past Castiel had brushed aside such wounds, but now he owned both the pleasures and pain of his vessel. It had to have been strange, for a being of light and Grace to look upon mortal meat and know it as part of one's true being.

"You'll be okay, now?" Dean asked, trying to distract the angel from his thoughts, "You know what to do?"  
Confusion returned, deeper now and laced with anxiety. "Fantastic. You need to pee, Cas. Urinate? Tap a kidney?"

The last was the expression Dean used most open and Castiel brightened when he heard it. "Good," Dean said, though the thought of the angel spying on his bathroom habits made him bristle, "So just point and shoot."

He reconsidered when Castiel took a shaky step away from the sink and nearly fell. He caught the angel under one arm and propped him back up against the wall. "Maybe you should just sit down this time," he said, "You can try aiming later."

Castiel fumbled with his belt until Dean knocked his hands away and took over. Duty done, he retreated to the sink, making a show of washing his hands to afford the angel some privacy. He didn't feel comfortable leaving, not when he'd seen the way Castiel blanched white as he sat down on the dingy toilet. Not when Castiel couldn't even call for help.

He counted to twenty, but the silence behind him was absolute. Dean snuck a peek in the mirror. The blue eyes that stared back at him were huge and terrified. The fear dropped years from Novack's face, reducing Castiel to a shaken child.

Dean turned, unable to ignore the plea in those eyes. "What is it?" he demanded and winced when the question came out loud and crass. Castiel's panic was so great it demanded a kind of reverence, called for the whispered reassurances one would use on an injured animal.

Castiel gestured at his body, a long sweep of the hand that took in every scar and length of hair. With his pants puddled around his ankles he should have looked absurd, but even now there was something overworldly in the way he held himself. Dean was reminded all over again just how alien Castiel really was.

"You're okay," Dean said, surprising himself by finding gentleness, "You just gotta relax. You just gotta let go."

With the words he understood the problem. Castiel was a soldier. He had told Dean that more than once, but Dean hadn't fully grasped what that meant. He too had been raised to fight, but there had been other things in his life as well, time for pies and wrestling matches with his brother. For Castiel there had only ever been the weary march to war and the counting of the cost when the battle was won. He did not understand what it meant to relax, had never been allowed to find release in anything, least of all his vessel's needs.

Dean took a deep breath. The courage that let him take down Lucifer simply wasn't adequate for the task now before him. So it wasn't courage that he drew on when he walked to Castiel's side but something else entirely, something just as strong but also frail.

"Okay," he said when he stood beside the angel, "I'm going to touch you. Don't tense up."

The first hand he placed between the sharp shoulder blades, carefully avoiding any of the dozen or so lash marks that decorated Castiel's back. The other he settled just above Castiel's groin. The angel allowed both with a look of mild befuddlement, but when Dean pressed inward with the hand on his abdomen he groaned low and deep. Castiel's hand shot out to circle Dean's wrist, clenching down hard enough to grind the small bones there against each other.

"Easy, Cas," Dean mumbled, "Just breath. In and out. There, that's good. Keep it up."

He held Castiel's gaze without flinching. The whole situation was weird and uncomfortable, but it also felt good to do something concrete for the angel who had pulled him free of the Pit. It was Dean's turn to loosen the leash, to give back to Castiel some of the freedom that should have been his from the start. Until now all he'd ever given Castiel was questions, that and rage when the answers didn't match what he wanted to hear.

He put a little more pressure on Castiel's bladder, moving the heel of his hand in a slow, wide circle. The angel lurched forward when he started to let go and Dean moved to brace him, letting Castiel rest his forehead on Dean's shoulder. He whistled long and low at the sheer volume the angel voided.

When it was over Dean freed his hand and raised it to rest on the nape of the angel's neck. Castiel's shoulders were jerking as if he was sobbing, but when Dean ducked down to get a glimpse of his face the angel's eyes were dry. Castiel moved when Dean shifted, burrowing his head closer and circling his arms around Dean's waist.

Dean could have told him that things would get better. He could have promised that he, at least, would not abandon Castiel, as both his father and his kin had done.

Instead he held on and let the silence speak for itself.


End file.
